


If I Knew The Color of Your Eyes

by boomerangsandadora



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Art of Burning
Genre: (Which is technically based on Salvage but that's not relevant), (hopefully), Although I filled in a lot of blanks, And before whatever pain she has planned for afterwards, Based on Hella1975's The Art of Burning, But honestly I'm proud of it ngl, But since this is for her birthday, Child psychologists will be like wtf is this, Dealing With Loss, Gen, Happy (if somewhat bittersweet) Ending, Happy Birthday Hella, Hella did make me cry a lot with Lanse, Hurt/Comfort, Takes place vaguely after Chapter 24 or Chapter 4 of Book 2, This is the nice thing that I've written, Zi Se and Lanse are Hella's OCs, but a good cry, but i wrote it during an emotional breakdown okay?, i think it might make you cry, it is soft zuko hours, so please enjoy, we're ignoring the whole blue fire/angry zuko thing, whatever we're calling Lunisolar, where you smile at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27812155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomerangsandadora/pseuds/boomerangsandadora
Summary: Lanse was taken away in the dark, but Zi Se is back in the light and Lanse’s still gone. Zi Se wants to paint a picture to remember his brother, but he's already forgetting. What color were his eyes?How can he be forgetting Lanse already?The red of anger and the blue of sadness war within him, but can Zuko remind Zi Se to see the rainbow?
Relationships: Zuko & Zi Se
Comments: 39
Kudos: 216





	If I Knew The Color of Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hella1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hella1975/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Art of Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736617) by [hella1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hella1975/pseuds/hella1975). 



> Hella, I can't believe you can legally drink. It'll be your first time, right? Careful you don't get hungover, I hear chundering in Spoons is the worst!  
> If you haven't read The Art of Burning this fic will make no sense, so if you stick around that's on you. 
> 
> Okay yes, this is Hella's birthday present, but I also want to dedicate it to my friend who passed away. He was an incredible artist and a story I heard about him once was the inspiration for this fic, plus I was wondering what he (and Lanse) could've done with more time. But rather than focusing on that, I tried to focus on Zi Se so it was a slightly less depressing piece. 
> 
> If you can't tell from the summary and my little dedication, CW for loss and discussion of death.
> 
> Fic title from the song "The Color of Your Eyes" from "Daddy Long Legs" the Musical for three (four) reasons: it's relevant, Shmeeds is a genius, and (especially) Hella hates musicals. (AND it's Color and not Colour)
> 
> I hope you enjoy and have a great day xoxo

As Zi Se sat cross legged at the tea table that had been repurposed by the healer as an art table (there'd been murmurs about painting as therapy, but he'd stopped listening), Zi Se thought of his brother. While Zi Se's art was always placed in a desk drawer--and would disappear every week when the servants took the trash out--Lanse's art was pinned up in the boys' shared room.

Once, father had asked Aunt Ichika why she kept it—he insisted it looked just as ridiculous as Zi Se’s scribbles—but Ichika had explained that Lanse had talent. “His tutor explained it to me. See his self portrait? The way he drew his neck is very unusual for someone his age, we’ll want to have this one day when he’s a famous artist.”

When Zi Se imagined what he would do as Firelord, Lanse always insisted that he would paint Zi Se’s family portrait. He didn’t care about ruling the Fire Nation, he just wanted everyone to look at his art. 

  
Zi Se wondered if Lanse could do art on the farm. He hoped so--he couldn’t imagine Lanse being happy if he couldn’t paint. He remembered nights in the prison when Lanse would trace patterns on his back as if he was painting, he never thought he’d miss the cold touch so much. Did Lanse miss him too? Was it better to believe he did--that he was sad--or that he had moved on and forgotten Zi Se already? 

If Lanse was painting on the farm, he might be painting a picture of Zi Se. And while Zi Se knew he wasn’t as talented as his brother, that had never stopped him from competing with him before--he had to at least  _ try _ to make a better painting to show him someday. It was probably pointless, but Lanse always encouraged him to try his best.

He made a vaguely circle-like shape for Lanse's head. Zi Se tried to remember what color Lanse’s eyes were—it’d been so dark and had he ever really paid attention before that?—as he tried to paint his brother. This was stupid. He wasn’t talented, not like Lanse. If Zi Se was on the farm and Lanse was here with Zuko, Lanse would paint a beautiful portrait that everyone would applaud. But Zi Se had let his brother’s brown hair bleed into the skin so it was all muddied. Muddied like his memory.

Tears poured down his face and he stuffed his fist in his mouth to stifle a sobbing gasp.

Lee— _ Zuko  _ , he reminded himself—stopped meditating and crossed the tent, before crouching down to see what was wrong. He put a hesitant hand lightly on his back, Zi Se closed his eyes as he leaned into the touch, imagining it was Lanse’s. “What’s the matter buddy?” Zuko asked, his voice too deep and raspy, a reminder that he wasn’t Lanse, that Lanse was  _ gone  _ and Zi Se couldn’t even remember if his eyes were amber like their mother’s or green like their father’s or brown like their aunt’s or--

“I’m going to forget what he looked like,” Zi Se told Zuko in between sobs. He remembered asking father once what mother had looked like. He hadn’t answered. He’d thought it was because father was angry--father didn’t like to talk about mother, especially since it was Zi Se’s fault she died--but now he wondered if he couldn’t remember. Mother had lived for forty years and now, only five years after she died, no one knew what she looked like. How many years would it take for the world to forget Lanse?

Something welled up in Zi Se. It felt dark and unfamiliar, different from the fear he’d spent so long in. It was fiercer, bolder.

Anger.

He was angry. Angry that he wasn’t a better artist. Angry that Zuko wasn’t Lanse. Angry that he couldn’t trust anyone in the camp. Angry that he’d been underground and father hadn’t come for him. Most of all, he was angry that Lanse was gone.

He snatched the paint brush, its tip still thick with the red paint he had used to paint Lanse’s smile, and splattered it across the page. 

“Oh!” Zuko was surprised, but he wasn't angry. Gently he asked, “Why’d you do that?”

Zi Se wasn’t angry either. He  _ wanted _ to feel the red fire of anger, but even with red paint everywhere, all he really felt was the cold blue of loss. He threw himself onto Zuko as if that could quell his sadness. As if his love for him could fill the hole his brother had left in his heart. He sobbed into the older boy’s shirt as Zuko hesitantly wrapped his arms around Zi Se’s small frame.

“It’s okay, Zi Se. Lanse’s in a good place. But--It’s, it’s okay to miss him.” Zuko sounded unsure, the way he always did when he comforted Zi Se. (Zi Se was five, not a dummy.)

“I don’t want to forget him,” Zi Se murmured into Zuko’s shirt. 

Hesitantly Zuko asked, “Would you like me to paint a picture of him?”

Zi Se nodded, pulling back to look up at Zuko, eyes shining with hope and tears. “I can’t remember what color eyes he had.”

Zuko’s face darkened for just a second, a memory flashing behind his eyes, before he forcibly returned a smile to his face. “Amber, just like you.”

“Just like me,” he echoed, thinking of how similar they’d been. “Aunt Ichika used to say we had our mother’s smile.”

With another tight-lipped smile, Zuko slipped Zi Se out of his grasp and moved to kneel in front of the small table. He grabbed a blank piece of parchment and dipped the paintbrush in the water to clean it. Zi Se watched intently as Zuko’s hesitant strokes formed first a face, a neck, a body, then a smile, a nose, and eyes. Looking at the shining eyes--both rebellious and confident all at once--Zi Se saw his brother,  _ really  _ saw him, for the first time in months.

“It’s perfect.”

“It’s not as good as my sister could do,” Zuko admitted sheepishly. 

Zi Se smiled wider at that. Even Zuko wasn’t as talented as his sibling. Just like Zi Se, he was second best. “I love it. Thank you.”

Zuko smiled at him and, for once, the joy actually reached his eyes. 

“Hey Zi Se?”

“Yeah Zuko?”

“Let’s paint a picture together. It can be anything you want as long as we do it together.”

Had Zuko missed the whole reason he had to make the portrait in the first place? “I’m not good--”

“Painting doesn’t have to be about talent, it’s just about having fun. Come on, if you could paint anything what would it be?”

“Can we paint a turtleduck pond?” Zuko nodded. “At sunset?” Zi Se added and Zuko nodded again.

Zi Se used blue paint to make a circle and sloppily filled paint in, Zuko smiled and said the textures looked like waves in the pond. Zuko insisted that they both try to paint turtleducks, but Zuko went first, showing how to form the wings, shell, and beak. Zi Se laughed at his own attempt--it looked more like a blob--but didn’t feel the usual emptiness at comparing his art to someone else’s when Zuko pointed out how well he’d done the shell. As Zuko set to work on the grass, Zi Se painted a red sunset. 

He looked at it and smiled. “I think we’re done, right?”

Zuko shook his head. “It needs a rainbow, don’t you think, buddy?”

Zi Se beamed as Zuko mixed red and blue paint for him to create the purple needed for a rainbow in the background.

Zi Se let Zuko ruffle his hair as he painted and realized that Zuko was as much his older brother as Lanse ever was. He still missed his first brother, he always would, but he wouldn't let the eyes of the dead blind him to the love of the living. 

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HELLA!!! 
> 
> This was written in an emotional breakdown, but once I realized it was worth posting it was repackaged as a gift. You're welcome. I’ve read it so many times I hate it but I liked it when I first wrote it which hopefully means it’s decent. 
> 
> Readers you have three jobs:
> 
> 1\. Please leave a kudos and write a comment--if you do, the next time you fast forward through commercials you'll press play at the perfect moment
> 
> 2\. Make some art (FOR JOY not talent)
> 
> 3\. SEND HELLA A HAPPY BIRTHDAY MESSAGE
> 
> (Bonus points if you combine numbers two and three)
> 
> Also, not required, but I recommend taking my UQuiz (also a bday present to Hella cause I'm that extra) to find out what member of the Ullaakut you are: https://uquiz.com/yk2ffF 
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


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